


If It’s Not One Spatiotemporal Rescue Mission, It’s Another

by bejesusness



Series: I heard a rumor that everything was okay [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-01-05 09:51:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18363611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bejesusness/pseuds/bejesusness
Summary: They went back in time. Allison rumored their father into being a better person. Life for the Hargreeves kids seems to be good, until the effects of time travel come crashing down.Dave fix-it. Claire fix-it. Cha-Cha fix-it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: some swears
> 
> previously in this series: after the end of season one, five brought the siblings back in time, dropping their consciousnesses into their 13yo bodies. They brainstormed ways to stop the apocalypse and decided the best was to get Allison to rumor their dad into being a nicer person.

Reginald Hargreeves unlocked the front door and held it open so his kids could enter before him. Klaus and Five took off their scarves, gloves, and coats as Pogo came over to greet them.

“Would you like me to take those to the dining room, sir?” he asked Reginald, gesturing to the two donut boxes he was balancing in one hand as he locked the door with the other.

“It’s fine, Pogo,” he said, “I’d like to go see Grace anyway. She’s still in the kitchen?” he asked, to make sure.

“Yes, sir. Dinner is almost ready.”

“Five, Klaus,” Reginald said, “Would you mind telling your siblings to clean up and come to the dining room?”

“Sure, dad,” Klaus said, and he and Five made their way to the living room. Their five other siblings were all sprawled out around a board game.

When their father had suggested going out to pick out donuts for dessert, Five had been the first to volunteer. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to spend time with his siblings. He did. And it wasn’t even because he was still wary of their father. He was, even though Allison had ‘rumor’ed him into being a nice person. No, the reason Five wanted to go along was to make sure he got some mocha fudge chocolate cake donuts for himself.

Klaus had volunteered to go on the donut run for two reasons. One, after they were thrown back in time to relive their lives and prevent the apocalypse this time, they’d all decided to look out for each other better. And one way they agreed to do that was to stick together. No less than two siblings were to leave the house together. At least until they were older.

The second reason was because the game they were playing only accommodated four players. Ben always prided himself on being the banker for any game that needed one, even if he couldn’t also be an actual player. That meant that Allison, Diego, Vanya, and Luther would be the ones playing. That meant Luther would have to play Mall Madness.

“This is nice,” Five paused at the doorway and looked lovingly at his siblings. “The apocalypse is being averted. Everything’s going to be okay now.”

Klaus was about to agree, but remembered the thing he’d been wanting to talk to Five about since the apocalypse stopped being the number one priority. “Well…” Klaus glanced over at Five and brought his hand up to his chest. “There’s one eensy weensy little thing that maybe you can help me with?”

Five, knowing his brother, was hesitant to ask. “What?”

It appeared that Klaus was fiddling with some necklace or something through the fabric of his shirt. “Okay, so you remember back in the bad timeline when I used the briefcase and traveled to 1968?”

“Yes,” Five said slowly, “Why are we bringing that up now?

“See,” Klaus said faux-casually, “the thing is, when I was there, I met the love of my life. And since I won’t be getting ahold of the briefcase this time ‘round, I won’t be able to meet him. Unless I still did already meet him? Since it all happened in the 60s and that time period wasn’t affected by the rewrite you did of the past, or rather future, sixteen years... Did it happen? Did I still meet him?”

“Yes,” Five said, “you met him. You personal timeline wasn’t changed. But he wouldn’t have met you. You never traveled back in this timeline.” 

“Then can you maybe help me travel back? Since you’re so good with that timey-spacey stuff.”

“No.”

“Yes, you are,” Klaus said, playfully punching Five in the arm. “You’re the best time traveller I know!”

“Klaus,” Five said, feeling a headache coming on, “you know what I meant. I can’t take you back.”

“Here,” Klaus said, loosening his tie and undoing the top buttons of his shirt, “I have these.” He pulled out a pair of dog tags on a chain. “I usually keep them tucked away. I mean, I know dear Papà’s supposed to be cool now, but I’m still not taking any chances. They’re too important. But you can use them to track Dave, right? Oh, Dave’s his name, the guy I was talking about. I can also give you the exact month, day, and year I arrive. I can give you an estimate of the time, too, but I’m not a hundred percent sure on that one.” 

Five didn’t hear much of Klaus’ rambling. He just stared at the tags, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. “Where did you get these?” he asked, reaching out to take them.

Klaus hesitated, but dropped them into Five’s hand without issue. “I took them with me when he... when I came back to the future.” 

“In the bad timeline, as you called it.”

“Yeah.”

Five finished studying them and looked back up to Klaus. “So how do you have them now?”

“I... oh.” Klaus understood Five’s meaning. How _did_ thirteen-year-old Klaus end up with Dave’s dog tags? “I hadn’t thought about that. I’d just always had them on me, it seemed normal to have them, you know?” 

“This is weird,” Five said, pointing accusingly at him with the tags. “You shouldn’t have these. This is highly improbable.” 

Klaus scratched his head. “Maybe since it was already temporally displaced…” 

Five stared attentively and waited for his brother to continue. Klaus paced a bit, but made no attempt to finish the sentence.

“Go on,” Five prompted.

Klaus threw his hands up in the air. “I can’t,” he said. “I have no idea what I’m saying. I was just repeating words I’ve heard you say before.”

Five pinched his nose and took a steadying breath. “Time is fickle. Perhaps, in some way, your meeting him was something that was, possibly is, meant to happen.”

“Yes!” Klaus exclaimed, with a jump and a clap for emphasis. The five others were so engrossed in the game, they didn’t even notice. “I told you. We’re soulmates. So you can take me back now.” 

“No,” Five said in a way that would have made anyone else feel like an idiot for even suggesting it.

Klaus, however, wasn’t fazed. “What?” he asked, “Why? You said-”

“Maybe it was meant to happen. Or maybe I just fucked up when I brought us back. The person those tags belonged to, he died, didn’t he?”

Klaus froze up, unsure of the correct answer to a question like that. “...What makes you say that?”

“I’m not stupid,” Five said. “You went to 1968, fell in love with him, he died, you took his dog tags, then traveled back to 2019. Your behavior then makes a lot more sense now. You were really messed up, huh?”

It was a very, very brief summary of events, but Klaus still felt an ache in his chest thinking back on it. “Well,” he said, powering on, “It’s all okay now. We can just,” he popped his tongue and made bursting jazz hands, “pop back and get him out of there.”

“Klaus, what if he was meant to die? It could be a fixed point in time.”

Klaus swatted that thought away with his hand. “Dead, MIA, what difference does it make at the end of the day?”

Diego cheered from across the room as he came across a special sale.

“Look,” Five said delicately, “I know you care about him-”

“I _love him_ ,” Klaus forcefully amended. “More than I’ve ever loved anyone. More than I love myself. I got _sober_ for him, for christ’s sake. I got sober and I stayed clean, and I,” he paused to rub the tears out of his eyes. “I just want to see him again, but we jumped back in time and maybe that has something to do with it, why I can’t find him. So I thought, maybe I just have to meet him again, you know?” Klaus wiped at his nose, but didn’t bother again with his eyes. They were too wet to do anything about now. “I just want to see him.” he said softly. “Please.”

Five sighed. _End of the world as we know it?_ He thought. _No problem. But trying to fix my little brother’s love life?_ He debated for a moment. _Hopefully it will all turn out okay. It should. If not, at least I tried to help him._ “Alright,” Five said. “I’ll do it.”

“Great!” Klaus smiled and scrubbed his eyes dry. “Just let me go grab a pop-tart for the road.”

Five held up his hands to stop him. “I’m not taking you now.”

“What the hell, Five?” Klaus asked, irritation beginning to bleed into his voice. “You’re giving me whiplash here. Are you gonna take me back or not?”

“Klaus,” Five said, trying his best to be a patient, kind, comforting brother. “Listen. Your body is 13 years old. I’m not sending you off to war. You need to wait until you’re an adult again.”

“So you’ll take me back when I turn 18?”

“I’ll take you back when you’re 29.”

Klaus frowned. “But that’s... so long from now.” 

“I know.” _Patient, kind, comforting,_ Five reminded himself. “I’m sorry. But if there’s any residual time energy left there from your last visit, which is a good possibility since the dog tags exist in both in the past and the future, it will be best to mimic the situation as closely as possible to the last time it happened. Do you understand?”

“Frankly, my dear? Not at all.”

_Take a breath, Five,_ he thought to himself. _He doesn’t have your experience in time travel. He doesn’t understand physics like you do. He’s probably still grieving over this guy._ “If we make it as close as possible to the last time it happened,” he explained to Klaus, “the world almost definitely will not end. If I were to take you back now, it very well could. Get it?” He handed the dog tags back and Klaus cradled them for a moment before sliding them back over his head.

Klaus leaned back against the doorway. “I guess. But sixteen years, you’ll still remember to take me, right?”

“Yes, Klaus.” he said as he started walking over toward the others, “I’ll mark it down on my calendar. Even so, I’m sure you won’t let me forget.”

*******

A little while after dinner and dessert and Five was sat in the hallway, reading a book, in front of his bedroom door. Close enough to his siblings to remind himself that they’re all there and they’re all safe, but far enough to still have his own peace and privacy.

And close enough that Allison could take one step out of her room and not even have to raise her voice to get his attention. “Five?” she called to him, and Five, knowing by the unusual meekness in her voice and the bite of her lip that this was something important, closed his book and set it off to the side, letting her know she had his full attention. “I was thinking,” she began again and kicked at the carpet. “Do you think we could talk? In my room?”

He said, “Sure.” and followed her into her room, leaving the book behind on the floor. She dragged her new purple bean bag closer to her bed and motioned for Five to take a seat as she hopped onto the bed. She picked up a decorative pillow and held it comfortingly.

“So um, Five,” she said once they were both settled, “Could you maybe do me a favor?”

“...If I can.” Five said, knowing that it had to be something big if Allison was this hesitant. He would keep noncommittal in the matter until he knew more. “Can you elaborate?”

“I was wondering…” She steeled herself and met his eyes. “Can you jump forward and check on Claire? I know that we’re preventing the apocalypse from happening this time, but I just can’t stop worrying about her. So if you can just zap us there, see that she’s okay, and come right back, that would mean a lot to me.”

Five froze up for a second, debating whether it would be less problematic to tell her the truth or to lie. But it must have been a second too long because she seemed to sense his distress.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Uh, well, Allison…” He tried to think of a way to phrase it delicately.

“Just tell me,” she said, gripping the pillow for dear life.

“I can’t do what you’re asking,” he said.

“Why not?” she scoffed. “Klaus said you’re going to take him to save his boyfriend. I don’t even have to talk to Claire or anything. I just want to see her. Make sure she’s okay, you know.”

_I’m gonna punch him next time I see him,_ Five thought. He couldn’t say that out loud, though, so he adapted it to “Word sure travels fast in this house.”

“We’re _supposed_ to be closer this time. Help each other. Be there.” Allison said, trying to guilt-trip him. It wouldn’t work. Five was a tough nut to crack. But she was right. They were supposed to be better.

“You’re right,” he said. “Okay, well, you see… there’s no easy way to say this, Allison, and I’m very sorry-”

“What?” Her fingers were digging into the pillow so tightly, it was surprising it hadn’t ripped yet. “Tell me, Five.”

Five sighed and after a moment of struggle, got out of the bean bag. He walked over to the bed and sat beside Allison. “Normally,” he said, “I would say no because going to the future could affect our present, or because it could turn out to be different, since we didn’t make all the changes to the timeline yet and also there’s no guarantee that Claire even exists in this timeline so-”

“Wait. Hold up.” Allison swivelled to fully face him. “What do you mean she doesn’t exist?! She’s my daughter! Luther talked to her on the phone. She’s real.”

“I didn’t say she wasn’t real. She is. You gave birth to her. You raised her. But then we all went back in time, which was necessary to keep us from dying and to prevent the apocalypse from happening in the first place,” he said, suddenly feeling the need to justify his actions. “But now we’re living our lives over again with added hindsight. We know what happened last time, so we’re making changes now to make our lives better.”

“I still don’t understand how this affects Claire.”

“What it means is you would have to do everything exactly the same as you did last time. Every single thing, as closely to the original as you remember it. If you conceive her at the exact same moment in the exact same way with the exact same person, then maybe you’ll still end up with Claire.”

“Maybe?!” Allison said louder now, and at a higher pitch. “So even if I do things the same way as last time, I might not have her? I could just be ruining my own life again for nothing? It would be worth it for her, but…”

“It’s the best case scenario,” Five said, not daring to look at her. “I’m sorry.”

“You can’t just go get her?”

“I can’t go back to a future that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“There has to be something,” Allison said softly, eyes growing wet.

“There isn’t. I’m sorry. I really am. The only people who’d have a chance to do something are incapacitated.” Five made sure of that when he destroyed the briefcases. _But if there’s anyone who could crawl out of that mess and get the Commission running again,_ he thought, _it’s her._ He looked over at his sister. Her face was soaked in tears and snot. Five thought on it a moment and came to a conclusion. As much as he dreaded thinking about the Handler, let alone seeing her again, he knew he would do it. For Allison. For any of his bozo siblings, really.

“Actually,” Five said getting up, “let me go check something.”

Allison grabbed his arm and looked to him desperately. “Is there a chance?” she asked.

“Barely. But I’ll check for you, okay?”

She let go. “Okay. Thank you.”

Five jumped out of Allison’s room.

 

And into Vanya’s.

Vanya was sitting by her window, sorting sheet music. She looked up when she sensed Five’s appearance. The smile on her face dropped when she noticed his expression. “Five?” she opened the conversation for him, which he appreciated. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to. He knew it would be hard telling her.

“Hey, Vanya.”

She didn’t say anything else, letting him gather his thoughts.

“I wanted to stop by and let you know I’ll be leaving for a while,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes. “But I plan on getting back a couple minutes after I leave. A few hours at most. I just wanted to let you know so in case anything happened, you’d know I didn’t just decide to bolt.”

“We’re not supposed to go out alone,” Vanya said.

“I know. But this is a favor for Allison. And it’s not something I can ask any of you to help me with.”

Vanya stood, the music that was on her lap falling to the floor. She walked over to Five and hugged him. “Thanks for telling me,” she said. He gingerly hugged her back. They pulled apart and Vanya said, “Good luck. And be careful!” Then she smiled again. “I’ll see you in a few hours at most.”

Five smiled back then jumped out of existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this saved on my computer as [save dave/spare claire]


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know i didn't really have a set schedule for updating this, but i still feel like I'm late.

There was a mild ‘poof’ as Five popped into existence on the front lawn of the Commission. He took a defensive stance and raised his fists, fully expecting an attack that didn’t come. When a hot second passed and still nothing happened, he relaxed the slightest bit and looked around. He didn’t see a single person around. 

After destroying all the briefcases, wrecking the place, and just generally antagonizing The Handler, he expected her to sick an entire Kill Five Task Force on him the second he showed up. That’s what you usually got in exchange for crossing her. Not this unsettling radio silence. 

Five could have teleported directly into the building, directly into The Handler’s office, even, but he preferred to err on the side of caution, at least in this case. After all, he couldn’t let Vanya down. And he didn’t know what kind of traps to expect; he needed to save his energy for combat. So he made his way, cautiously, toward the steps, up the steps, to the front entrance. He reached for the doorknob. He put his hand on the handle, turned it. Then he shoved through the door.

“Where is The Handler!?” he shouted.

The few people who were walking through the hallway startled and  ran into whatever rooms they were closest to. There was some muffled shouting. Then an alarm was blaring. That’s when Five realized he should have brought a weapon with him. 

_ Shit. _

Suddenly there was a commotion coming from down the hall and a woman’s voice yelling, “Outta my way! This is a boss level job. You the boss? No? Then MOVE!” 

It was a very familiar voice, one Five would never forget. But not the one he expected. Armed with a pistol in each hand, she rounded the corner.

“Cha-Cha?! You're alive?!” Five absolutely blurted, shocked to see her alive and well and, apparently, at boss level.

“Who the fuck are you?” she asked as she aimed on gun at his head and one at his heart.

Five, not exactly sure how to respond at the moment, merely raised his hands in a gesture of no harm. For now. “Uh…” he said, “You don’t know me?”

“No” she scoffed. “Any particular reason I should?”

“No…” he said, discreetly scanning the people gathered about behind her, searching them for anything he could use as a weapon. “Of course not. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. Who are you?”

Five saw Cha-Cha’s eye twitch. That wasn’t good. “Alright, smart-ass,” she said, taking a few steps toward him, “I’ll give you three seconds to tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”

“Okay,” he said placatingly, “My name’s Five, but there’s no way I can explain everything in three seconds.” Without giving her a chance to respond, he jumped to behind the crowd of onlookers. He grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and then peeked between the people in the crowd. Cha-Cha was turned around now, and she spotted him. She ran toward him as the crowd dispersed. Five popped behind her and hit her over the head with the cylinder. 

Which did not knock her out as Five planned. She had the good sense to turn around when she saw him disappear, so the cylinder only glanced off her right brow. But she was still pissed. And bleeding a bit. 

Five popped back a few yards. He needed a new plan. Fast. Cha-Cha was charging him, guns out and now shooting at him. Five jumped back into the retreating swarm. He looked around for someone else with a gun. Or some other kind of weapon. A blunt object, maybe, even though that didn’t quite work the first time. Even a shoe lost in the shuffle would do. He was getting desperate.

He couldn’t see anything he could use. Until he saw a woman with a gaudy pearl necklace and he remembered part of a conversation he’d heard between Allison and Klaus about some movie they liked. Five jumped onto the woman’s back, and she screamed, as one does. He said, “I just need to borrow this,” as he fumbled to remove the necklace. He heard Cha-Cha yelling in the distance. He jumped back to Cha-Cha as she ran forward with visible murder present in her eyes. Or at least a heavy maiming. 

Five snapped the necklace and threw the beads on the ground. The woman, great fighter though she was, was not expecting it and so did the only thing she could do. Cha-Cha slid. She dropped one of her guns so she could catch herself. Five picked it up and aimed it at her as Cha-Cha unsteadily got back on her feet and aimed her gun back at him. They stood for a moment, staring each other down. Cha-Cha was the first to give. 

“Five like the number?” she asked.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“Alright,” she said as she lowered her gun. “We’ll talk in my office. But you try anything, you’re dead.”

Five gestured back to her with his own stolen gun. “Ditto.”

*******

Cha-Cha was leaning back in her big office chair behind her desk, examining Five as he sat on his own, much less comfy, chair across from her. He reclined as best he could anyway, wanting to seem calm and relaxed and not afraid. They both had their guns sitting within reach to draw at a moment’s notice. Five waited for her to open the conversation.

“So,” she said, sitting a bit straighter, “Explain to me how some kid ends up appearing outta nowhere in the middle of my organization without even a briefcase.”

“ _ Your _ organization?” Five questioned. Cha-Cha pointed at her desk in front of him. He looked down at a nameplate sitting at the front of her desk which read ‘Cha-Cha, Boss’.

“ _ My _ organization,” she said with a smirk. Five tried to sort out that all out in his head as she continued.  “It’s called The Commission. We make sure time runs like it should. This is it’s headquarters, so you better have a good reason for being here.” 

Five waved a dismissal. “I already know about The Commission. I used to work here. Sort of.”

Cha-Cha scrunched her nose up at that. “What do you mean sort of? You either did or you didn’t. Which is it?” She was watching him closely now, trying to figure him out.

“In this timeline?” he said, “No. But I did work here in an alternate timeline.”

“See, kid,” she said, eyes squinted at him, “now I know you’re lying. What you’re saying isn’t possible. The commission exists outside of the bounds of linear time. There’s only one possible timeline for us here.”

“You’re right. It’s hard to explain. I said alternate timeline; it’s more of an alternate universe, I suppose.” Five tried to think of a better way to explain before she got too impatient.

“You need to start making sense or I’m throwing you out of here. Through the window.” 

Too late.

“Okay. I’ll explain everything. But only if afterward, you answer my questions.”

“Sure,” she answered with only a split second’s hesitation.

“Shake on it?” Five asked, knowing that Cha-Cha was good on her word. Unless you crossed her first, which Five was definitely not planning on. They both reached across the table and solidified the agreement.

Five relaxed back into his chair, for real this time. “Let me start at the beginning.”

*******

“Right. No, I get all that. But when you say ‘the apocalypse’, you mean like… apocalypse-apocalypse?” Cha-Cha accepted Five’s retelling pretty well, except for that one bit.

“End of the world as we know it,” he said, deadpan.

“And it was  _ meant to happen _ ?” 

Five frowned. Then he got an idea how to present his case to make sure Cha-Cha would join on his side. “The Handler always said so,” he said, “But I’m not sure I believe it. How could life on Earth be meant to end just like that. Right on that exact day. It’s awfully convenient.”

“Almost like a cover-up. Or someone wanting to cash in early on their retirement,” Cha-Cha said, following exactly where Five was leading her. 

“Exactly,” he said, and couldn’t help a small smile showing on his face.

“You know we’re supposed to protect the timeline here- I always thought it was for the good of the world or whatever baloney they say to recruit you. But if I spent all that time working my ass off just so some higher-ups could move to The Bahamas or whatever- and you said I just got killed anyway?”

“Considering the fact that you’re here now and Hazel isn’t, I’d say so.”

“Wait,” she abruptly stood from her chair and leaned over her desk, “Are you saying Hazel was in on all that?”

Five panicked a little on the inside at her outburst -he almost had her- but made sure none of it shown on his face. “Our deal was that I would explain who I am and why I’m here, and then you would answer my questions.”

“Was that the deal?”

“I’m not saying anything else until you hold up your end of the bargain.”

She stared him down for a few seconds more, then sighed and sat back down, and held her head at her temples. “Fine,” she said at last. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about Hazel.”

“He was my partner.”

When it seemed she wasn’t going to go on, he encouraged her, “And?”

“He’s not anymore.”

Five was getting pissed. Sure, Hazel might be a sore subject, but he told her all-well, most-well, a lot of what happened with the whole apocalypse fiasco. The least she could do is answer one damn question in depth. “Can you elaborate on that?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Alright,” she thought back a moment, “so around sixteen years ago, we were on a mission. Totally normal. It couldn’t have been any simpler. But then Hazel just disappeared. Turned around and he was gone. I don’t know how he got out of there so fast without the briefcase.”

Five found that interesting. “So he just vanished?”

“Yeah. There one moment, gone the next.”

“And this is before you were ‘The Boss’?”

“Okay, so after Hazel deserted me, I went back to the Commission and found the place a fucking mess. Some kind of attack, I guess. Briefcases destroyed. Lots of people were killed. Including the woman who used to be in charge. So I took over and brought this place back to running order.”

_ So when we all came back through the timeline,  _ Five thought, _ Cha-Cha was here. She was on a mission in 2003 so her personal timeline must have reset from that point. But what about Hazel? He did say he wanted out. Maybe he had a briefcase and used it right as the apocalypse hit. That way, he wouldn’t have been in the timeline and therefore the universe or whatever wouldn’t have been able to throw him back to this point in his linear timeline. He just kept moving forward. _

“So you don’t know what happened to Hazel?” he asked her.

“Obviously not,” she scoffed. “We just went over this.”

Five leaned forward the slightest bit. “Do you want to know?”

Cha-Cha raised an eyebrow. “You know where he ran off to?”

_ Not specifically, but,  _ “I might. But first, how about we make a deal?”

“Another deal?” Cha-Cha asked as if it was the absolute last thing she wanted to make.

“I’ll tell you what happened to Hazel after you do me a favor,” he reasoned.

“What kind of favor?”

“Don’t worry, it should be simple for the Head of the Commission to handle. The Boss of the Commission, I mean.”

“Tell me what it is before I hit you.” That was the tamest threat she’d given him so far. It emboldened him to go on.

“I need to go back to the alternate universe I came from and bring someone from there back to this universe.”

“No way.” She looked at him like he was crazy. “Are you crazy? The one with the apocalypse? You know what that would do to the timeline?”

“I promise you, it won’t make much of a difference. Barely a ripple.”  _ Liar _ , he thought. But it couldn’t make a  _ bad _ difference, right? What’s the worst that could happen? The apocalypse? Been there, done that.

“No,” she said with complete finality.

Five had no choice but to pull out the big guns. “Then I guess you won’t ever be able to get your revenge on Hazel,” he said.

“...”

“I mean, if you can forgive him for abandoning you, then good for you. I wouldn’t be strong enough to just move on like nothing happened. Especially from someone who didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye.”

“You promise it won’t completely fuck up the timeline?”

_ Not completely, no.  _ “I swear on my life.” 

“And you really know where to find Hazel?”

“Yes,” he assured her, “I know how to find Hazel for you.”

“If you don’t hold your end of the bargain,” she threatened, “I’ll go back and make sure you were never born.”

“Deal.” He smiled.

Five and Cha-Cha both stood and shook hands.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to figure out how time travel works in the UA universe as well as the apparently separate timeline that the commission is set on but boy. It is, to misquote a different series, a big heckin ball of timey wimey nonsense. But i did try.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Hope everyone's not too bothered by the wait. This chapter was the most challenging to write so far, probably because i had no idea where i was going with it beforehand, I only knew the major major plot points. And then it started to get long so i split it in two. that's why it's listed with 4 chapters now instead of the original three.

“Gotta bring out the big guns for this kind of travel,” Cha-Cha said as she yanked an alarmingly big suitcase off the shelf. She and Five had gone down to the rarely visited basement of the Commission, looking for a means to travel between universes. They apparently found it in a suitcase that appeared to have just barely survived the turn of the century. 

“We’re supposed to travel with that?” Five asked. “How? It’s huge. You could easily fit a body in there. Maybe two if you’re good at organization.”

“Well I hope you’re good at organization, then,” Cha-Cha said while trying to get some of the dust off of it.

Five started. “What?”

“This is old technology. No sleek design. No convenient size. No exterior controls.”

Five didn’t like where this was going. “We have to get in that thing?”

Cha-Cha sneered at him. “Don’t be a priss,” she said. “How do you think they did it in the old days?”

Five shuffled over to the suitcase and flicked at a big wad of spiderwebs stuck to it, momentarily forgetting that spiderwebs, by nature, are sticky. “How did they even have this in the old days?” he asked, wiping the webbing off on his pants. “We don’t have this kind of tech now.”

“Yeah, because the idiots in the old days realized how stupid they were and how dangerous it was to travel between universes and banned it. This is the last working device capable of transdimensional travel.”

“Does it even work anymore?” he asked, skeptically. “I mean, look at it.”

Cha-Cha shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out. The records show that plenty of people have used these things to go… wherever,” she said, trailing off a bit at the end.

Five sensed it and asked, “There’s a ‘but’, isn’t there?”

“Well,” she said, “none have been confirmed to have come back.”

“Oh. Great. That’s reassuring.” Five walked away. He made it to the other side of the room before he stopped, turned around, and walked back over to Cha-Cha. “Do you have them?” he asked.

“What?”

“The records, schematics, whatever.”

“There should be a copy of the whole file in that filing cabinet over there.”

He went over to look. “What’s it under?” he asked.

She thought on it for a second. “I don’t know. Trans-dimensional travel?”

“Not there.”

“Suitcase?”

“Nope.”

Cha-Cha joined him at the filing cabinet. “Move. Let me look.”

They both searched all through it until they finally found the folder they were looking for filed under ‘F’ for ‘Failure’. Five took it then asked Cha-Cha if she had a marker. 

“I have a pen,” she said, pulling one out of her pocket. “Why?”

“I’m thinking,” he said as he took the pen and made his way back over to the far wall. 

Cha-Cha leaned against the shelving unit behind her. She watched Five mumble to himself as flipped through the file. Two minutes later, she was bored. She asked, “Is this gonna take a while?” 

Five waved a vague gesture with one hand. 

“I’m gonna go get something outta the vending machines. You want anything?”

She didn’t receive a clear answer for that one either.

“I’ll be back in a few,” she said as she left the room wondering why she ever agreed to any of this, how she was going to put up with the little shit for a whole mission, and whether or not this was all worth it.

*******

Cha-Cha reentered the basement a good twenty minutes later, eating a snack cake. She was also carrying a bag of chips, a granola bar, the same snack cake but chocolate, and two cans of soda. The basement was exactly as she left it, except, of the grey walls that used to be white but were stained with years and years of dirt and neglect, one of them appeared a darker grey than the rest. Which, of course, was because Five had drawn and written all over it in pen. Cha-Cha started to count to ten but only made it to three.

“What,” she said, walking up to Five, “are you doing?” She didn’t say anything about how he’d managed to cover the wall with his scribbling, not unlike a toddler. She didn’t mention how he was in the exact same spot as he was twenty minutes ago, and how he’d appeared to have accomplished nothing but a poor attempt at redecoration. She didn’t ask him if he wanted a snack cake. 

Five started to explain his work, pointing out equations as they became relevant. Note that Cha-Cha didn’t get this far in life by being an idiot. She considered herself very smart, thank you very much. But Five was blathering on about ‘time dilation’ and ‘negative energy’ and ‘relative dimensions’. By the time he was done, Cha-Cha understood that he’d explained  _ something _ . She just couldn’t figure out what. 

“Okay,” she said, “So what does any of this  _ mean? _ ”

“If I jump with the suitcase at the same time the suitcase jumps with us, I think I can improve the accuracy and improve our chances of getting there in one piece.”

“Oh,” she said acceptingly. Then she gestured to the snacks she still held in her arms. “You want a soda or something before we go?”

They sat on the floor, backs against the wall covered in Five’s calculations, eating vending machine snacks in a companionable silence.

*******

Five’s plan seemed perfect, foolproof even, until he was squeezed into a suitcase, half suffocating, with all of Cha-Cha’s boney parts poking into all of his soft parts.

“I’m gonna turn this thing on,” Cha-Cha said. “You ready?”

“Yes, just count it down,” Five forced out through gritted teeth.

“Ready to jump in five… four,” Cha-Cha counted.

Five gathered the energy inside of him and focused it.

“Three…”

He pictured the apocalypse-universe in his mind.

“Two…”

A faint glow began to radiate, starting from Five’s hands and extending throughout the whole suitcase.

“One.”

Cha-Cha pressed the button. Five jumped. The suitcase disappeared from the floor of the Commission’s basement.

*******

Both gasping for air, Five and Cha-Cha clawed themselves out of the suitcase.

Cha-Cha looked around. “Did it work? Are we here?”

“Yeah,” Five said, the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him this was indeed the right place. “We just need to confirm the exact date and time.”

A familiar, but entirely unwelcome voice spoke from behind them: “April first, two-thousand-and-nineteen, two minutes and twenty-seven seconds past ten a.m.”

Five expected to cross paths with The Handler when they got here, but he expected to have time to prepare for it, not be ambushed from the get-go. Then again, in Five’s experience, The Handler is not the type of person one can ever be entirely prepared for. 

Five crawled off the ground and turned to face her; Cha-Cha stood behind him, trying to brush off the dust and dirt and time travel residue that had attached itself to her. 

The Handler gave them each a once-over. “Dimension travel, huh? Last I checked, that was illegal.”

“It’s not illegal,” Cha-Cha said, “Just… discouraged.”

“Maybe where you come from,” The Handler replied.

Five stepped forward to regain The Handler’s attention. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

“What am  _ I  _ doing here?” she asked and put her hands on her hips. “You have a lot of nerve, kiddo.”

Five put his incredibly forced smile into place, willing himself to keep it there rather than to just go nuts and attack The Handler where she stood. Ben says it’s supposed to help him manage his anger, but Diego says it just makes him look like a homicidal maniac. Klaus thinks Ben was punking him and that’s the reason he suggested it in the first place. Regardless, Five replied to her, “It’s interesting how you just happen to be here right after we show up.”

“It’s not like it’s my job to know what’s happening within the time stream or anything,” she said as she inspected her nails.

“I’m assuming the version of myself in this world has already antagonized you.”

“To put it lightly,” The Handler said with a sour look on her face as she apparently flashed back to her recent encounters with Five. “After everything you’ve done, I should just kill you now. And you,” she pointed accusatorily at Cha-Cha. “What, are you two working together now? How precious. It’s so sweet I’m going to barf.” 

Five was getting fed up with all of this. “Do you have a reason for being in our way, or can we just go?”

“Why did you come here?”

Five scoffed. “You think I would tell you?”

The Handler glided forward until she was towering over Five. She said softly, “That’s okay, Five. I’ll figure it out. Don’t think I won’t.” She patted his cheek then turned and walked away. She paused and called back to them, “You have half a day before the world ends. Enjoy it,” and then in an instant, she was gone. For a second Five stood there and fantasized about biting her perfect manicured fingers off while he had the chance, but this was technically his past, and when he faced her before, she had all of her fingers. He didn’t want to risk changing anything that would alter his and his family’s new, better lives in the past. He’d have to figure out a way around The Handler without killing her.

Five looked up as he heard Cha-Cha approach. “So now that we’ve gotten the official welcome package, what do we do now?” she asked.

“First thing’s first - we have to find Claire.”

*******

“Do you know where you’re going?” Cha-Cha asked as they passed the same fountain for the third time.

“I saw Allison’s plane ticket,” Five replied without stopping, “I checked the phone book. Claire lives with her father somewhere around here. The problem is that children aren’t listed in the directory, and the Patrick doesn't have an uncommon name.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t explain why we keep going in circles.”

“I am making sure we are on the right path,” Five said through gritted teeth.

A few more steps and Cha-Cha asked, “You have the possible addresses and whatever written down?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see.”

Five pulled out his pocket notebook and handed it to her. She took it and immediately turned toward a nearby corner store. “Where are you going?” he called to her.

She waved the book at him. “To ask for directions. I’d like to find the kid before the world ends if that’s okay with you.”

*******

Cha-Cha’s directions got them to Claire’s house in just under an hour. The only problem was that no one was home.

“So what are the chances they return before the apocalypse hits?” Cha-Cha asked as she rifled through some papers she found on the kitchen table.

“I don’t know,” Five replied from his perch on the nearby counter. He pressed the tips of his fingers into his forehead in a poor attempt to focus and figure out what to do next. 

“Any idea where they might have gone?” Cha-Cha asked as she moved over to the fridge. She pulled out the orange juice carton and shook it. It was almost empty. She put it back.

“I don’t know,” Five said. “I didn’t think they wouldn’t be here.”

“Should we track ‘em? Figure out where they went? Seems like the next step, to me.” 

Five sat there for a few more seconds, staring into nothingness. He couldn’t have come all this way to fail right before the finish. They had to find Claire. Allison was counting on them. But what were the chances- no. Allison was counting on them. That’s all that mattered. “...Yeah,” he said, “We should track them.

Five and Cha-Cha ran around the house looking for any sort of clue as to where Patrick and Claire could have gone. They couldn’t find anything useful. Then Cha-Cha remembered the orange juice.

“Wait!” she called as she ran back down to the kitchen. “I have an idea.” She tore through the pantry, fridge and freezer, picking things up and putting them right back. 

“...Are you hungry?” Five asked from the doorway, thoroughly confused as to what caused this manic kitchen quest.

Cha-Cha shoved a bunch of boxes and containers into Five’s arms. “They’re low on a lot of essential food and supplies,” she said. “I bet they went to the supermarket.”

Five considered it. “That’s not a bad idea. Good job, Cha-Cha.” 

*******

There were three major supermarkets in the city. In an uncharacteristic stroke of luck, Patrick and Claire were at the first one they checked. 

Five tackled Cha-Cha back into the aisle behind them and pulled out the photo of Claire that Allison had given him before he left. How she managed to have a photo of a daughter that wasn’t born yet and likely never would exist in that universe was beyond Five. It was probably for the same reason that Klaus still had his dog tags from Vietnam: strange things just seemed to happen to their family. Trying to figure out why or how would get you nowhere in the long run.

The picture was shoved in Cha-Cha’s face. “It’s her!” Five exclaimed in a whisper.

Cha-Cha pulled the photo back so she could actually see it. “That’s her, alright,” she said. “So we just grab her and go?”

There was only one problem Five could think of with that plan- he didn’t know how hysteric Patric would get after his daughter had been kidnapped. There was still a bit of time before the apocalypse hit. What if he called Allison? He was sure she would choose Claire over the rest of them, over the rest of the world. He couldn’t jeopardize her part in stopping and then preventing the apocalypse.

They decided to follow her around and, to avoid any unnecessary incidents, they would wait until closer to the apocalypse to approach her and take her back to the good universe.

There was, however, one other thing Five had to do here.

“You can handle this for a bit, right?” he asked Cha-Cha.

“What, you ditching me?” she asked, outrage beginning to spark on her face.

“There’s just one other little thing I need to do here,” he reasoned. “It’ll only take a couple minutes.”

“Fine, whatever. But if you leave me here-”

“I would never,” Five said with a smile. 

The next second, he was standing outside the mansion. He ran around to the alley and hid. Five minutes passed. Nothing happened. He checked his watch. Then he heard the door open and someone step out. He popped behind them.

“Hazel,” Five called. 

Hazel turned around. “What?” he asked. “Whatever it is, can you make it quick? I’d like to get out of here before your friend- brother- whatever wakes up.”

So Five did get his timing right. This was right after Hazel showed up with his and Cha-Cha’s guns. When he said he wanted out. Remembering that almost made Five feel guilty about what he was about to do next.

“I just wondered if there was some way I’d be able to get ahold of you in the future. If there was ever an emergency or anything.”

“More of an emergency than the apocalypse?” Hazel asked.

Five shrugged. “You never know.”

“So what, you want to exchange phone numbers?” Hazel stared at Five for a moment, considering. “All right,” he said. Five stealthily let out the breath he’d been holding.

They swapped numbers. Five waved as Hazel left. As soon as he was out of sight, Five grinned to himself. He teleported back to Cha-Cha. It was almost time to get Claire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea about the timeline of events in-universe. I did my best. 
> 
> So then. Will the gang get back to the good universe safely? Will Hazel live or will he be revenged upon by Cha-Cha? Will Klaus get his boyfriend back? All this and more- some time within the month of August, probably.  
> See you then!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for SWEARS in this chapter- Cha-Cha gets PISSED.  
> And violence and threats of violence.

Five jumped back to Cha-Cha- and the worst possible scenario he could think of. The Handler had Claire held in place with one arm, the other pointed a revolver at the girl’s head. Claire looked at him with eyes too wide open for her little head. Cha-Cha stood a few feet in front of them, one of her guns drawn, but pointed to the ground. The Handler and Cha-Cha were both pretty pretty scratched up, somewhat bloody in places. And for some reason, The Handler was dripping wet.

“I was gone for what, five minutes?” Five exclaimed.

“Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds, actually,” The Handler said and smiled a sharp, awful sort of smile. “Just enough time, it seems, to take your little niece into my custody.”

“Cha-Cha,” Five turned to her perplexed, “What happened?”

“As soon as you left, this bitch jumped me. So I fought her, sprayed her with the garden hose, tried to strangle her with the garden hose, shot her once or twice, punched her a lot, then she grabbed Claire. Then you popped back into existence.”

It didn’t explain as much as Five hoped, but it did at least, explain all the water.

“Patrick?” Five asked.

“Still in the house,” Cha-Cha answered. “Claire was playing outside by herself.”

One less thing to worry about, but it still left a truckload of other things to still be worrying about. 

“Why are you doing this?” Five asked the Handler, as he tried to puzzle out a way to get Claire away from her safely. He could jump right over there- knock the gun away- but there was doubt in his mind at that tactic. The Handler, he remembered, was a quick shot. He wasn’t about to bet her reflexes against Claire’s life. There had to be another way. There had to be  _ something _ he could do.

The Handler sneered at him. “I don’t know what your plan is, and frankly? I really don’t care. I just want you out of my way. For good.”

Five started inching to the right, slowly closing the distance between him and Claire. “Great,” he said, “I’ll promise to get out of your way for good as soon as you let Claire go.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. I want you dead.”

“That’s got nothing to do with Claire. Let her go.”

“This girl,” she said, “is important to you. You’re trying to save her. Well, it won’t work. By this time tomorrow, everyone on this shithole of a planet will be dead. You. Your family. And this adorable little ragamuffin.”

“This isn’t the way this happens,” Five told her, still sliding his way closer. “I, myself- my being here- is proof of that.”

“You,” she replied, “are an abomination. A miscalculation. An oversight on my part, really. But I’m going to fix it- and I swear if you take one more fucking step-”

“Alright!” Five immediately stopped moving and raised his hands up in front of him. “We’re all going to die- fine. In that case, you don’t even have to bother with her. Let her go back inside with her father. Then you can do what you want with me. Just- you don’t have to  _ shoot _ her.”

“You know, kid,” she said to him, “I really don’t give a squat what you-”

Time seemed to slow and in that single moment, a few things happened all at once. The Handler abruptly stopped talking. Five teleported forward and knocked The Handler’s gun out of her hand. Claire’s face was splattered with blood. 

Cha-Cha ran forward and pulled Claire to her, holding the girl protectively against her chest. The Handler collapsed and Cha-Cha raised her still-smoking gun to shoot the woman again, but Five stopped her.

“She has to be alive for the timeline to play out correctly!”

Cha-Cha acquiesced. But as The Handler started to sit up, gripping her shoulder where the bullet tore through, Cha-Cha called her a bitch one more time.

Five grabbed ahold of Cha-Cha and Claire and jumped to the back alley behind a coffee shop in the middle of the city.

“Why’d you bring us here?” Cha-Cha asked. “You shoulda went straight back to the suitcase so we can leave.”

“In a minute,” he said, moving over in front of Claire. He stared at her for a moment, not sure how exactly he wanted to start the conversation. He didn’t have to.

“Are you the one from the moon?” Claire asked him.

“Uh- no,” he replied, “You’re thinking of Luther. Um, my name is Five. I’m your uncle. One of them.”

“I thought you died.”

“No, actually-” should he tell her that he was trapped in the post-apocalypse for nearly a whole lifetime before he was finally able to return home? Five didn’t know how to interact with kids. “I just kind of got lost for a while, I guess.”

“Well…” Claire said with a look on her face much too serious for a kid her age, “you’re back now, so it’s okay. Mommy will be happy. She was sad that you died.”

“Really?” Five felt the words pierce into his chest. He didn’t know why it affected him so much. Of course his siblings would miss him. Mourn him. But hearing it from a third party just kind of… made it real.

“Yeah, she told me lots of stories about you guys,” Claire said as her gaze drifted over to Cha-Cha, where she stood nearer the edge of the alley, apparently on lookout. “Is that lady one of the Umbrella Academy, too?”

“No, that’s Cha-Cha. She’s a friend.” He turned around. “Hey Cha-Cha,” he called. “Come meet Claire.”

Cha-Cha walked over, tucking her gun away. “Yeah, it’s nice to meet you,” then to Five, “Can we go now?”

********

The suitcase was covered in leaves and bugs when Cha-Cha pulled it out of the bush they’d stashed it in. She started picking them off while Five tried to explain to Claire what was going on. “There’s an emergency,” he told her, “and the only way to save the day is to travel to a different world and fix the problem from there. And we need your help, Claire, to do it. You won’t be able to come back to this world ever again. But your mommy and aunt and your other uncles are already there.”

“What about Daddy?” she asked the question he was dreading.

“The thing is, Claire,” he said delicately, “your daddy can’t come with us.”

“But he’ll get hurt if he stays here! You said-”

“Claire,” Five held gently onto her shoulders, “Your daddy, and everyone else here, will be okay. We’re going to save them. If you come with us, your daddy won’t remember you. You’ll live with us- your mommy and me and the rest of our family. But if you don’t help us, your daddy, and everyone else here will die. Yourself included. I’m sorry, Claire, but those are your only two options.” 

From his peripheral, Five could just make out Cha-Cha raising an eyebrow in their direction. It made him wonder if he had been too harsh with Claire. She was just a girl. A child. He refocused on Claire and noticed that she was balancing on the edge of a full-blown meltdown- he could see it in her wobbly lower lip and the moisture building up in the corners of her eyes and the way that her arms coiled tightly around herself. Five silently cursed the events that had led him to this moment, that caused it to be him who had to go on this mission. Five tried to think of the best course of action to take now. 

He was interrupted by Claire. She wasn’t crying, or screaming, or stomping, or flailing, but it didn’t appear as though any of those options were off the table just yet. For now, she just asked, “We’ll save the world?”

“Yes Claire.”  
“And everyone will be okay? You’re sure?” 

“I promise.”

She nodded. Five figured he may have underestimated the girl, after all. She may be a child, but she was also a Hargreeves kid. And blood or no blood, powers or no powers, Hargreeves were tough. They had to be. He wished it could be different for her, but he knew that if they wanted everything to work out okay, it had to be Claire’s choice to go with them.

“Claire,” Five said and opened his arms just wide enough to fit a small child, “We’ll be okay.” 

Claire took the hint and ran into Five’s arms and he held her there, albeit awkwardly, as she finally let her tears run free.

*******

After a lot of squeezing and squishing and complaining all around, the three of them managed to shove into the suitcase. Less than a minute later, which seemed much closer to an eternity when one was folded up in all the wrong ways and shoved into something that was absolutely not made to hold three people (even though one was the size of a child and one actually was a child), they were safe back home in a basement in a secret organization in the universe that didn’t have the threat of the apocalypse hanging over its head. 

They could not get out of the transporter fast enough.

Cha-Cha smoothed out her clothes as best she could, then kicked at the suitcase. “I should have this damn thing burned,” she said.

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Five said, checking Claire over to make sure she really had gotten to this universe in one piece. “It’s the only fail-safe we know of that can aid us against a threat from another universe.”

“I’m not actually going to burn it, smartass,” she replied. “I’d just like to. Similar to how I’m not actually going to put a hole in your head.”

“Can we keep the death threats to ourself when we’re in front of a little girl?” Five said to Cha-Cha, then addressed Claire: “Are you okay, Claire?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she said as she looked around the dingy basement. “Can we go see Mommy now?”

“Soon,” Five said. “We just have to figure a couple things out first.” Five met Cha-Cha’s eyes. “Is there somewhere Claire can hang out while we talk?”

*******

“So how are we going to do this?” Five asked. Cha-Cha was considering him from across the table and he felt a strong tinge of deja-vu. Claire howled from across the courtyard as she was chased by the five employees who were playing tag with her. Or pirates. Or something that required a lot of running around and yelling. Claire’s playmates were the workers lucky enough to be walking through the hallways as the group made their way outside. Cha-Cha gave them the option to accompany them to the courtyard and babysit while she and Five talked, or lose their jobs. So now they each put their all into being pirates. Or evil-doers. Or something.

“I sure hope,” Cha-Cha said, “that you’re not gonna try to skimp out on your end of the deal.” Five received this as the threat it was.

“I promised you Hazel’s whereabouts- you’re going to get Hazel’s whereabouts. But I also have to take Claire home.”

“If I let you go now, how can I be sure you’ll come back?”

“The thing is,” Five said, “I don’t think I can take Claire back right yet anyway. The mother she knows is, for appearance’s sake, the same age as I am. Not only would that be confusing, and possibly traumatic, to Claire, but also to Allison. I don’t even know if she’s old enough to get pregnant  _ now _ . And Claire’s already…” he gestured to her as he realized he didn’t actually know  _ specifically _ how old the girl was, “that old.”

“So what are you saying?” Cha-Cha asked him.

“I think we deal with your Hazel problem first. Then you watch Claire for five, maybe ten minutes while I go back to my family, explain this all to Allison, assure her that Claire’s alright, then ride the wave of the timestream for about uh… sixteen years. Then I’ll come back and pick her up.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Cha-Cha said, “You want me to babysit this girl for  _ sixteen years _ ?!”

“No,” Five said, his patience escaping him like sand through a sieve, “I want you to babysit her for  _ five to ten minutes _ .”

“You just said-”

“It will be sixteen years for me. It will be ten minutes for you. I am a time traveler. I have been a time traveller for one-and-a-half lifetimes. I assure you- I know what I’m doing.”

Cha-Cha sat back in her seat with but a single eyebrow raised. “...Alright. So, then. Hazel?”

*******

It wasn’t hard to track down Hazel. When Five called, he picked up on the second ring and agreed to meet up with surprisingly few questions asked. Although the meeting wasn’t until a half hour later, Five teleported them to the park immediately, so they would have the advantage of getting there first. Five stood moodily under a streetlight while Cha-Cha stayed in the shadows with Claire. Five had insisted on bringing her- he didn’t trust Cha-Cha’s employees well enough to leave Claire alone with them for an hour or so. After everything he’d done to save her, he wasn’t taking any chances. He only hoped Cha-Cha didn’t get things too messy in front of her.

Fifteen minutes after Five’s gang got there, fifteen minutes before the meet time, Hazel walked into Five’s lamplight. A second passed, then Five fell back to stay with Claire as Cha-Cha strode over to Hazel, gun pointed directly at his heart the entire time, Five could just barely hear him mutter, “Five, you traitor. I knew you were going to screw me over.” 

Hazel didn’t counter Cha-Cha’s threat with his own gun like Five expected him to. Hazel appeared calm the entire time, but Five realized he himself was sweating as he watched the scene in front of him. But why? It’s not like he had any loyalty to Hazel. Or Cha-Cha, for that matter. He was just doing this for his family, right? A means to an end- that end being Claire’s safety.

Right?

In a flash, Cha-Cha spun the gun around and pistol whipped her ex-partner. He cried out and swayed unsteadily, just a breath of wind away from falling over. Cha-Cha tucked her gun away and grabbed Hazel by the collar of his shirt. When the stars finally cleared from behind his eyes, he gave Cha-Cha a grimace and said with false cheer, “Cha-Cha! You’re alive!”

“‘Course I’m alive,” she spat. “Why’s everyone keep saying that?”

“Alright,” Hazel said considering, “You seem to be upset.”

“UpSET?”

“Maybe upset was the wrong word.”

“You _ left me _ ,” Cha-Cha said. “In the  _ middle  _ of a _ job _ . Not a single word ‘bout where you were going. Not even a word that your  _ were _ going. Just there one minute then -poof-” she shoved Hazel, and he stumbled back, “gone the next. No goodbye, not a wave, nothing. So tell me, Hazel, why I shouldn’t be upset. Why shouldn’t I kill you right here, right now? Why shouldn’t I carve you up like a motherfucking turkey?”

“... Because I’m… sorry?” Hazel tried.

“You’re sorry,” Cha-Cha repeated. She turned around. “You hear that, Five?” she called. “He’s  _ sorry _ .” She turned back to Hazel and leaned into his personal space. “I’ll sure give you something to be sorry about.”

“Wait,” Hazel pleaded. “You said I left in the middle of a mission?”

“You don’t even remember?!”

“That’s not how it happened for me. At least let me explain it from my perspective.”

She took a moment to consider his request. “... Fine,” she decided.

Hazel recounted his version of events, from working with Cha-Cha to the mission that brought them to the Hargreeves to the apocalypse. He skimmed over the parts he knew she wouldn’t like.

“You left me for some donut whore?!” Cha-Cha cried. That was one part, Hazel knew, that she wouldn’t like. 

“Stop saying it like that,” Hazel said. “It’s not like we were dating. We  _ weren’t _ dating in your universe, right?”

“Just cuz we weren’t dating doesn’t mean you can just up and leave in the middle of everything. No explanation. No goodbye. Just gone.”

“You’re right,” Hazel said, and it sounded like he meant it. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this, Cha-Cha. I really didn’t mean to hurt you.” 

Cha-Cha started. She took a step back from him. “Hurt me? You think you  _ hurt me _ ? You just pissed me the fuck off. Hurt me. Ha! You don’t have the  _ balls _ to  _ hurt me _ .”

“Well, either way,” Hazel shrugged, “You’re probably better off without me. I was never as good at the job as you were.”

“Damn right,” Cha-Cha said. “And you know what, Hazel? I’m the  _ boss _ now. I’m in charge of everything. Imagine  _ you _ being in charge- ha! You’d never be able to handle it.”

Hazel let out a short laugh. “You’re right. Actually, I think I’m doing better for myself now, too.”

“Running around creation with Ms Donut?”

“Yeah.”

Cha-Cha hesitated a moment then asked, “You have a picture?”

“Of Agnes?”

Cha-Cha nodded. Hazel pulled out his phone and brought up a selfie of the two of them in front of a sunset.

“ _ That’s her? _ ” Cha-Cha asked. “I thought she would be more… not that.”

Hazel studied her to gauge her reaction. He couldn’t, and so he said nothing else.

“Would you do it again?” Cha-Cha asked.

“What, leave with her?” Hazel didn’t need even a single second to think on it. “Yes,” he said, “I love her. She makes me happy. I can’t be sorry for that.” 

Cha-Cha thought about what he’d just said. ‘Happy.’ Was  _ she _ happy? 

She reached for her gun, let her hand rest on it. She glanced over to where Five and Claire still stood, trying to pretend like they weren’t both eavesdropping on the whole thing. Cha-Cha sighed. “‘Kay,” she said, and then she slapped Hazel hard enough to send him sprawling into the dirt. She heard Claire giggle from the sidelines and Five trying to shush her.

“Don’t do anything else to piss me off,” she told Hazel, “because now I know how to find you.” If you looked closely, you could see a hint of a smirk on her face as she turned and walked back over to Five. “I’m the motherfucking boss of this whole damn organization,” she called over her shoulder to Hazel. “I don’t need you. I never did. And I’m not going to waste another moment of thought on your sorry ass.”

Cha-Cha grabbed onto the arm that Five didn’t have around Claire, Five nodded to Hazel, then he teleported them back to the Commission.

*******

“If you so much as look at her wrong, I’ll kill you,” Five said to Cha-Cha as he leaned back against her desk. Claire sat next to The Boss, trying and nearly succeeding to stay afloat in her own big fancy business chair that had been commandeered from some unfortunate employee. She was drawing, quite seriously, on the backs on some official looking paperwork. 

Cha-Cha scoffed. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “After all the fucking hell we went through to get her here?  _ I’ll  _ kill anyone who tries to hurt her.”

Five believed her.

He wondered if he should ask her about what happened, or rather didn’t happen, with Hazel. He quickly caught himself and realized that was a terrible idea. It was really none of his business whether Cha-Cha killed Hazel or not. He was just surprised. The Cha-Cha he knew would never have let Hazel walk free. But then again, this wasn’t really the Cha-Cha he knew. This Cha-Cha had lived a different life with different hardships and different successes. One might look at Cha-Cha’s decision and call her weak. But Five knew better. This Cha-Cha, he figured, had to be stronger by loads than the one he remembered.

“Claire,” he called to her pushing off the desk, “I’m going now, okay?”

“Okay,” she replied, not bothering to look up from her work.

“You’ll be okay?” he asked, suddenly feeling uncertain about leaving.

She did look up at him this time. “Yes, Uncle Five, I’ll be fine.”

“Of course she’ll be,” Cha-Cha said, reaching over to ruffle the girl’s hair. “This Claire here’s a tough one. Besides, you’ll only be gone for what, fifteen minutes?”

Five felt himself smile- a real smile. “Fifteen minutes,” he agreed.

*******

Vanya placed the last sheet of music on top of the last stack, then fastened the pile together with a binder clip. She gathered up the stacks of paper and set them on her shelf. When she turned back around, her brother was there smiling at her.

“I’m not late this time, am I?” Five asked her, even though he knew she knew he knew exactly what time it was, down to the second, but only while he was within the walls of the Hargreeves estate. It was just some weird sense he’d developed in the past few months since they’d come to this universe. 

Vanya ran over to hug him. “You’re right on time,” she replied.

*******

Sixteen years later.

  
“Okay, but what is all… this?” Five asked, gesturing to Klaus’ whole being. He stood in front of Five wearing nothing but a trench coat and a towel wrapped around his waist, and of course, his dog tags. In one hand, he held a cheap briefcase that looked like it had been dragged out of a dumpster. Today was the day Five was going to (finally) send Klaus back to A Shau Valley, Vietnam, 1968, and he was regretting it already.

Klaus twirled with a flourish. “You said to mimic last time as closely as possible. Well, last time, this is what I was wearing. And I had the briefcase. It’s not the same one, of course, but I think this one’s close enough. I put a couple rocks in it to offset the weight.”

“You remember how much the briefcase weighed?” Five asked, surprised. He’d been around them for  _ years _ and he wouldn’t even have the slightest guess.

“Yeah,” Klaus affirmed. Five decided to just let it go as one of those strange Klaus Things.

“Alright. Gimme those,” Five said, pointing at the dog tags. He could have easily pulled them over Klaus’ head himself now that they were almost the same height- one of the many perks to finally being the same physical age as the rest of his siblings. But Five knew that wouldn’t go over well. Klaus treasured those dog tags more than any other earthly possession. He quite literally never took them off. Klaus had to hand them over himself.

Which he did, but immediately looked as though he wanted nothing more than to yank them back and return them to their rightful place around his neck. Instead, he maneuvered his briefcase into both hands and gripped it tight.

“Once you go back, this copy of them will cease to exist anyway,” Five said, trying to give comfort. “Probably.” 

“One more thing?” Klaus asked, shuffling his feet. “How many people can you transport at a time?"

Five let out a sigh, even though he was fully expecting this. “I know what you’re asking and normally the answer would be no, but if I said that you would just spend the rest of your life there with him, wouldn’t you?”  
Klaus looked Five firmly in the eye. “I’m not exaggerating when I say he’s the love of my life.”

“Fine,” Five said flatly. “If you can get him to agree to give up his entire life to travel to the future with you, you can bring him back here. But try not to mention him dying otherwise.”

Klaus jumped in delight. “Deal! I promise! Thank you!” He wrapped his arms tight around Five and spun him around.

_ At least I won’t have to find a way to keep Diego’s girlfriend from dying,  _ Five thought,  _ since Cha-Cha won’t be killing her this time. Claire is back with Allison. None of the others ever had anyone important, and we all kept Ben from dying again. Maybe after this I can finally retire. _

When Five felt himself flat on the ground again, he held onto Klaus, focused on the dog tags, and jumped halfway across the earth and fifty years into the past, to the exact time and place Klaus had come to the first time. 

“I’ll be back for you in ten months,” Five whispered to Klaus. “Be ready.”

“Yes, sir,” Klaus whispered back and saluted him.

Five jumped out of 1968 and into 1969. Klaus stood, visibly anxious, at the rendezvous point, hand-in-hand with whom Five had to assume was Dave. Klaus’s eyes darted around, whether searching for his brother or a brother-in-arms who could potentially catch them in the act of deserting, Five wasn’t sure, but when Klaus spotted Five, his entire being lit up in joy.

“That’s him!” Klaus exclaimed, swatting at Dave excitedly. “That’s my brother, Five! Here, Five, meet Dave!” Klaus pulled Five forward. Dave shook his hand.

“Wow, Five,” Klaus said, “You don’t look like you’ve aged a day!”

That was the exact kind of idiotic comment Five needed to regain his wits. “I came here right after dropping you off, dipshit,” he told Klaus, feeling the smile on his face grow to match his brother’s. “Time travel, remember?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This didn’t fit in the story, but important information: Claire receives a gift every year on her birthday with an unsigned card with no postmarks or return address, but she knows that they’re always from Auntie Cha-Cha.
> 
> Cha-Cha… gave me a hard time in this chapter. I’d always planned on her letting Hazel live, but GETTING to that point. That was the tricky part. I wanted to do right by her character and I hope I managed.  
> My only regret is not being able to shove “Elaborate.” into Hazel’s mouth.
> 
> Thanks to all the readers, subscribers, kudos-ers, comment-ers, and just everyone who ends up at this point. Thank you! This is my 1st finished multi-chap fic n i couldn't have done it w/o all the love and support
> 
> If anyone wants to check out my tumblr, it's: lesbian-space-fish.tumblr.com  
> I left for a while (so if it seems empty that’s why) but I’m coming back now. Feel free to take a look, talk to me about things, whatever :)


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